#EatABeet fundraiser for children’s nutrition in Hamilton returns

Hamilton | Ontario | Community | Health | Latest News |

By

Published January 31, 2022 at 11:04 pm

Whether your office is virtual or in-person, you can support a fundraiser that helps children in Hamilton get nourishment.

Be warned, it involves the root vegetable that only Dwight Schrute from “The Office” could love.

The #EatABeet fundraiser, in support of Food4KidsHamilton, is underway through Feb. 21. The online challenge began last year, when COVID-19 restrictions proscribed the Hamilton Firefighters for Charity from playing a benefit hockey game.

Food4Kids provides packages of healthy food for Hamilton children between the ages of four and 17 who have limited or no access to food each weekend. Food packages are assembled by volunteers and delivered to schools each week to ensure children have nourishment on weekends. The deliveries are discreet, in order to help children from being stigmatized by the peers.

The group says it supports about 1,350 children in Hamilton, and has programs in 73 schools citywide (63 elementary, 10 secondary).

The challenge is straightforward.

  1. Post a photo or video of yourself eating a beet.
  2. Donate $25 to Food4Kids if you are able, or whatever you can donate.
  3. Challenge others to participate and donate.

Beets are nutritious, of course. But their earthy, bitter taste is often be tough to swallow for anyone who is not a beet farmer-karate black belt-paper salesman-perennial prank victim-table tennis star like Dwight, the character Rainn Wilson played on the classic workplace sitcom.

Nevertheless, Hamilton-area politicians have been getting in on the fun and the fundraising.

A chain of challenges can be tough to relink, but Hamilton Mountain MP Lisa Hepfner challenged her Liberal mate, Public Services and Procurement Minister Filomena Tassi, who represents Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas. In turn, Tassi issued a bipartisan beat challenge to fellow Hamilton-area MPs Chad Collins, Matthew Green and Dan Muys.

Green conceded that beets are far from his favourite vegetable, but he was game for it.

“Minister @FilomenaTassi found my fear factor food,” he wrote. “I have a visceral repulsion of beets.”

Further info about Food4Kids is available at food4kidshamilton.ca.

insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising